


Things We Lost to the Flood

by TheBookshelfDweller



Series: The Greenhouse Effect [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Withdrawal, Greenhouses, Holmes Brothers, M/M, Mycroft's manor, Part Two of Series, Subtext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 00:51:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBookshelfDweller/pseuds/TheBookshelfDweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'After all, they are masters of subtext and of assigning words with meanings that don’t really match the ones found in dictionaries. Their entire history is like a palimpsest, lines upon lines of words almost spoken, but washed away before they fully take shape, so that they are only pale outlines below the bold ink of seemingly innocuous sentences that they speak instead.</p><p> [...]</p><p>Sounds of water surround them – dripping of pent-up condensation, gurgling of the irrigation system, wet sounds of bodies shifting in soaked clothes – and it feels as if they are submerged, weightlessly suspended in a medium denser than air. [...] they might be drowning, but they can’t seem to find it in them to mind, to care.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The watered-down blood we share

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone :) Here's the second part of the Greenhouse Effect series, hope you like it.
> 
> Enojy!

 

* * *

_One day the world will end. The end will start with fire. Next, there will be floods._

 

* * *

_10 th January, 2016 – late at night_

“It must be a matter of colossal importance, if you have chosen to forego your childish pride and ask for _my_ help. What could it possibly be?”

The room is dimly lit, stuffy and over-heated for Sherlock’s taste, although the sweat breaking out in beads along his brow, palms, and the small of his back has little to do with the crackling fire in Mycroft’s tackily over-decorated fireplace.

“You know what it is. Even if your minions haven’t already informed you of everything the Yarders found, you must have deduced it yourself, so don’t be purposefully obtuse, Mycroft. For all your other numerous shortcomings, dullness of mind never counted as one of which I could rightfully accuse you.”

There is an extra edge to Sherlock’s usually snarky word-stabs as he snarls at his brother, special venom welling up from some sort of agitation (surprisingly) not related to Mycroft. The older man rakes his eyes over his sibling’s twitchy from, carefully taking in his fidgeting and unusually prominent perspiration. Ever since Sherlock appeared at his doorstep, the usually flurry of manic energy and bitter tones, and then proceeded to fling himself into an armchair in Mycroft’s study, Mycroft hasn’t gotten a chance to take a proper look at the Consulting Detective. Of course, that is not to say that he was not able to draw a decent amount of conclusions about the man’s state, but the details remained hidden until now.

“Yes, of course. How long has it been?”

“A day.”

“What was it?”

“Heroin.”

“Not the usual then.”

“No.”

“Anything else?”

“Horrible quality. That’s why the effects were awry, I believe. Also, that might account for some of the symptoms.”

“Start from the beginning.”

“Isn’t that where one usually starts?”

“ _Now_ , Sherlock.”

Sherlock could swear obeying Mycroft causes actual physical pain, but he does it nonetheless. The beginning then. The air is stuffy with heat as Sherlock starts talking. An hour and a half later, when his voice finally falters and ceases, the air is stuffy with words, positively cluttered with everything that’s been said (and that which hasn’t).

“Why did you come to me, Sherlock? If my memory serves me, you have always been adamant in your refusal of my assistance regarding this particular matter.”

“Will you help or not, Mycroft?”

“Don’t I always? I simply wish to know what was it that prompted you to see reason. I may wish to employ a similar tactic in the future. What was it, then?”

“Maybe I just wanted to pester you with my presence.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if that were true, but it does seem an unlikely reason, considering the fact that any pleasure you might derive from, as you so aptly put it, _pestering_ me, would be strongly overridden by your own suffering that you so often point out as the main consequence of your intolerance of my company. So, let’s try again and this time, if you are so intent on not revealing the real reason, _do_ try to invent a lie that is a smidgeon more convincing. I, too, am bored by mediocrity, so try not to exhibit any. It is rather unbecoming on you, brother dear.”

 _‘Very well_ ’ Sherlock’s mind bites out. Sherlock knows Mycroft has already worked it out, the _real_ reason. But if Mycroft is going to call him out on sentiment, he might as well return the favour.

“Why do you keep doing this, Mycroft? _Helping_?” Sherlock spits the word out like fish oil he was forced to swallow as a child. Mycroft doesn’t miss a beat before answering, his words sliding off his tongue as easily as the said oil off a spoon, and with the same greasy feel to them.

“Your services are invaluable to our country. I can’t have you disabled or malfunctioning.”

Ringing of the last syllable hasn’t died down yet, when Sherlock’s contempt-laden words cut in.

“If this is your example of a convincing lie, then it is as successful as your weight-control programme, and considering you’ve gained half a stone recently, that is not saying much about the plausibility of your statement.”

They are in a stale-mate, both acutely aware of the reluctant admissions needed to resolve it. It is only a matter of whose will be the first one to be delivered. In the end, after a relatively short, but definitely charged silence, Mycroft is the first to give in, with a tired sigh barely audible as it passes his lips and wavers like a white flag of surrender. Or perhaps, of an armistice.

“It’s what brothers do.” The words contain sentiment, although Mycroft’s tone is positively flat and devoid of any emotion. It sounds like a line learnt by heart and delivered by a very lousy actor, but Sherlock, who has known Mycroft for a very, very long time, knows the tone is there by design, as a cover. The false indifference of his brother’s voice is more telling than the seemingly apparently sentimental content of the actual words.

Of course he knows why Mycroft helps him, time after time. It is for the same reason Sherlock reluctantly (that being rather an understatement) accepts his help, in the end, every time. Sherlock knows, and it would be so easy to simply say the words. Perhaps it would be a first step towards something. Perhaps. But in his current state, with a dark, twisted part of him running wild with need and spite, he remains firmly planted, and the step is never made. He can’t resist but throw Mycroft’s own words back into the man’s face.

“I thought caring wasn’t an advantage, Mycroft.”

He expects the Iceman, untouchable, even though he hopes his words at least irk the frigid creature a bit. He expects a clever retort or a derisive laugh, but instead, he is met not with the Iceman, or the British Government, or even the grumpy version of his arch-nemesis, but with his older brother.

“It is not, Sherlock. But it is a disadvantage I accept and willingly maintain as a part of my life, when it comes to you.”

Mycroft’s eyes are tired, but startlingly soft (Sherlock has long stopped associating _soft_ with Mycroft), and there, in a stuffy, panel-and-Persian-rug-covered study Sherlock looks at his brother and sees only that – his brother. They are too similar to ever function properly side by side. They are too similar, and still too different, driven mad by the reflections of their own flaws that they see in each other, and annoyed by their respective ways of handling said flaws, always considering that of the other to be improper. It is absurd, the way both of them would disembowel and quarter anyone who dared cause harm to the other, but how they, personally, never shy from cutting deep into each other. Sherlock will push and insult and aim to hurt, and Mycroft will rise to the challenge, every time. It isn’t an occasional friendly jibe or innocuous sibling rivalry – they are both men of exquisite talents to cause harm, and they never spare each other, never grant each other any form of clemency. But they are brothers, and while blood and shared DNA cannot be the only sustenance for affection, when their whole twisted, complicated relationship is stripped down to bare bones, there is the simple truth that they are brothers, and brothers care. Brothers love. It’s what brothers do.

“Why?”  Sherlock asks, plainly, this time, curious rather than spiteful.

Mycroft smiles slightly, because the “why” brings back memories of a younger voice, equally inquisitive, repeating the same question over and over at the age of three, putting young Mycroft’s knowledge to the test.      

“Because you are my baby brother, Sherlock. You were that before you were anything else, and you always will be, despite everything, and even when everything else falls away.”

“I think you maybe thawing, Mycroft. Your moniker could soon become unfitting. And that’s not an answer.”

“It is _my_ answer. And now you owe me yours. What makes this time different?”

Sherlock knows truth is the only option at this point in the conversation. He takes twenty seconds to choose his approach, decide what to say, where to start. He has no wish to speak to Mycroft about any of this, but beggars can’t be choosers, so he must offer a bit of honesty. He might as well keep his answer as short as possible, spare himself some trouble and go straight to the crux of the matter, which is precisely why he chooses to start his explanation with the one word which could easily make up for the entirety of the answer. _‘What makes this time different?’_ Surely, Mycroft must know. He is still making him say it, though. And knowing him, he won’t settle for a single-word answer, either. Arse.

What makes this time different? Obvious.

“John.”

 

* * *

_An hour and a half later_

The room is dimly lit, stuffy and over-heated for Sherlock’s taste, although Sherlock’s shortness of breath and coarseness of voice have little to do with the heat and slight lack of oxygen, which has been continuously consumed by the fire throughout the course of the evening.

“Sherlock. This will not be easy.” Mycroft says, looking directly at his brother, some of his _let’s-talk-business_ air surrounding him again. _‘Is it ever?’_ Sherlock thinks. He knows the drill, knows what awaits him, and it makes him weary and tired just thinking about it. Of course, he has no intention of letting Mycroft know _that_.

“I wish you would refrain from stating the obvious, Mycroft. It just adds to your usual level of tediousness.”

Mycroft doesn’t even acknowledge the flippancy of his brother’s words, his immunity to it so strong by now that it hardly reaches him anymore. Besides, after all that has transpired in the last few hours, he knows flippancy is only a thin thread at which Sherlock can grapple for some illusion of normalcy, and if he were being honest with himself, he is grateful for it, as well (although he has no intention of letting Sherlock know _that_ ). They don’t do _sentiment_ very often, and when they do engage in the rare practice of being honest and open with each other, both Sherlock and Mycroft are regularly left feeling somewhat off-balance. ‘ _Yes, flippancy is most welcome in this case’_ Mycroft concludes.

“There is only one more order of business which needs tending to, before you may have your much-needed rest” he says, assessing for the umpteenth time the younger Holmes’ dishevelled, dilapidated state.

“Yes, of course.” Sherlock almost sighs.

“He won’t be kept away, surely you must be aware of that.”

“Of course I’m aware, Mycroft. I know that. I know _him_.”

“Yes. But just because you know him, does not make you infallible, nor immune to the mistake of underestimating him. He will find you, even if I try to stop him. For some reason, he doesn’t seem as susceptible to my authority as one would expect. Come to think of it, he tends to be surprisingly obstinate. A strange quality in a soldier, really.”

“Wrong.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“You’re wrong. It isn’t obstinacy that your eyes-and-ears-in-walls observed, Mycroft.”

“Oh? What is it then, pray tell?” A knowing gleam in Mycroft’s eye tells Sherlock he’s walked right into Mycroft’s trap. If it weren’t for his current state of utter exhaustion, Sherlock’s face would stretch into a small, private smile. Of course, Mycroft would never be wrong. Clever Mycroft, making Sherlock say the words which would bring his point home– trying to keep John away from Sherlock would be as futile as it is idiotic.

“Loyalty”, Sherlock answers, because really, if admitting the blatantly obvious truth about John constitutes for being beaten in a verbal duel with Mycroft, then Sherlock is willing to forfeit this fight. Of course, John, loyal John, will never stand for being shut out. There’s no point in trying to keep him away.

“That’s what it is. Loyalty.” ‘ _And maybe (definitely) something else’_ , Sherlock thinks. But he has no intention of letting Mycroft know _that._

Mycroft regards him for another moment or two, and then decides to let it all rest for the time being.

“Your room is ready. Get some rest.”

In a world where his body isn’t battered and bruised and in which his every cell is screaming for things he should not be yearning for, Sherlock would have thought of something snide to say at such a patronising dismissal. In this world, however, he settles for a venomous stare and then hauls himself up to his room, plunking onto the bed, where sleep washes over him, muting the sounds and drowning out the world like a gentle, tepid flood.


	2. Clear eyes in muddy waters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait :) Here's chapter 2, hope you like it.
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

_17 th January, 2016_

If there is one thing John Watson hates more than falling asleep in a chair (that is by no means intended for such use as sleep – John’s back can testify to that), it is falling asleep in the said chair after drinking a spiked cup of tea (courtesy of his newly-rescued... _flatmate_ ), only to wake up to an empty flat and a rising wave of panic. The air is cold, the fire dead for hours now, with the bluish light of the early, barely-dawn awakening of the sky pouring in through the tall windows, both semi-occluded by drapes that hang like empty fish-nets.

It takes John half a day to trace down Sherlock. He tries the Yard and Bart’s, hoping to find Sherlock submerged in a sea of case files or a pool of forensic evidence, fending off boredom, but knows from the get-go that chances of anything being that simple and easy are minimal. Next, he tries all their old hiding places, ones they used for stake-outs, but they turn up empty.

By the time John shows up at Mycroft's door, passing by a (ridiculous) fountain in the courtyard, the older Holmes has already gotten Sherlock care, stored him away to the (relative) safety of his own home, with a medical team at the ready, day and night. John congratulates himself on the admirable amount of self-control that he exhibits as he restrains from pounding his fist against the oak door that mark the entrance into Mycroft’s kingdom. Instead, he rings the bell and waits.

There is shuffling of feet and voices exchanging instructions on the other side of the heavy wooden wings of the gate. John expects a maid or a butler to let him in – he wouldn’t put it past Mycroft to have one – but is instead greeted by Mycroft himself. The man’s face is a perfectly constructed mask, revealing nothing, with a slight rise of eyebrows posed in an expression of surprise John knows to be fake. Mycroft looks at John with some sort of bemused politeness, as if he has no idea why there is a (worried, confused) army doctor currently standing on his doorstep. The audacity of this act makes for the final drop in John’s Glass of Patience for Holmesian Shenanigans, and the dam breaks. He pushes past Mycroft and into the lobby, dusty soles of his shoes falling heavily against plush crimson carpet.

“Is he here?” he demands, turning to face Mycroft, who has just finished locking the door.

“John – ”

“ _Is he here,_ Mycroft?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you let me know you were taking him?”

“ _He_ sought _me_ out, John. With explicit wishes of leaving you uninformed for the time being, long enough to prevent you from following at his heels.”

“And when were you going to tell me?”

“My intention was to inform you later this afternoon.”

“I want to see him.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, at the moment.”

“Make it possible. I want to see him.”

“John – ”

“I said: I want to see him, Mycroft.”

The short soldier stares at the other man, his glare unrelenting, speaking volumes to the seriousness of his intent. John’s eyes, blue like deep water of some unsoiled river, lock onto Mycroft’s pale ones, almost colourless, like blue-tinted glass, both similar and oddly different than his brother’s. John stares at Mycroft, trying to relay everything he isn’t saying, until the silence is once again broken.

“John.”

This time, his name is said differently, not as a beginning of an unwanted explanation, but as a full sentence all in itself. It is said differently, almost softly, by a different voice.

John spins on his heel to face the entrance to a room at the end of the corridor, and finds Sherlock standing close to the doorframe, almost (but not quite) leaning against it. The Consulting Detective is wrapped in a green-and-blue tartan robe, with deep turquoise pyjamas under it. Wavering at the border between the room behind him and the corridor that hosts the other two men, Sherlock resembles a strand of seaweed, long, lanky, and swaying is some invisible undercurrent.

“Sherlock...” John’s anger seems to seep right out of him, drained through the soles of his feet and into the expensive rug beneath, as he takes in Sherlock’s tall, pale form. Sherlock’s face is a mosaic of pale skin and reddish blotches that indicate a fever. There is sweat strewn across his forehead, like a diadem of perspiration set low beneath the greasy curls of his hair. Despite Sherlock’s effort to keep his face blank and unaffected, John can tell from the slight scowl that settles around his mouth that he is in (at least) moderate pain.

“Sherlock, what’s going on?”

John can see a sort of battle take place behind the detective’s eyes, as if he is reminding himself of a decision and convincing himself to stick with it. John moves towards Sherlock, but Mycroft stops him by grabbing his arm.

“John – a word.”

“Let go of me, Mycroft.” If looks could kill Mycroft would be at least seriously maimed by the one John shoots him, but by the time the older Holmes eases the grip, another person enters the scene. A middle-aged nurse appears behind Sherlock, with the air of a no-nonsensical person surrounding her.

“Mr. Holmes, I believe I told you to stay in bed.”

“And you see how effective your request proved to be.”

“It wasn’t a request, Mr. Holmes, it was an instruction. Unless you prefer to collapse somewhere, like the stairs, say, I would advise you to follow such instructions.” The nurse seems unruffled by Sherlock’s honestly childish petulance and keeps her tone firm, but professional.

“Now, if you wouldn’t mind, please return to your room.”

“I would mind.”

“Well, life is full of disappointments, Mr. Holmes. Come on.”

Before either of the men can say anything else, the nurse takes Sherlock’s elbow and starts steering him out of the corridor. Sherlock doesn’t struggle (he doesn’t look like he has it in him to do so, even though John knows that the extent of Sherlock’s physical power is often broadened when he is being particularly sulky or stubborn). Instead, he just casts one last look into the corridor. John tries to catch his eye, but Sherlock looks pointedly past him. John turns his head just in time to catch the slight nod Mycroft gives his younger brother, before Sherlock’s gone from the room and Mycroft’s eyes return to John.

“John – a word. Please.” Mycroft doesn’t attempt to grab John’s arm again, but John knows that Mycroft is aware of the fact that such action is unnecessary this time. He will go willingly, if only because he knows it is his best chance to find out what exactly is going on.

Mycroft leads John to his study, shutting the door behind them. He shows John into one of the tall-backed armchairs before sitting down himself. Crossing his legs and propping his fingers so that their tips are touching, hands forming a pyramid in front of his chest, Mycroft trains his gaze on the shorter man in front of him. John makes an effort to keep his breathing deep and calm, trying to subdue the tempest that threatens to spill over the edges of him.

“What is going on, Mycroft?” John feels as if he’s wearing out that phrase by repeating it so much, bleaching it until it’s pale denim, well-worn and overused.

“I must say, I did expect you here, John.” Mycroft seems to not hear John’s question at all, as he proceeds to talk as if John hasn’t said a word. “But I am surprised it took you _this_ long to find him. I did tell him you’d be difficult to stave off, but I rather expected you at my doorstep at 7:11 am, banging your fists and shouting your lungs out.” Mycroft’s face retains its calm, half-smiling mask and his tone of voice remains the same (deceitfully) pleasant-but-empty lilt one might use to read the weather forecast.

Despite the urge to keep repeating his original inquiry until he gains an answer to it, John decides to play Mycroft’s game. He is familiar enough with how the older Holmes functions to know that pushing him wouldn’t prove to be productive.

“Honestly, I didn’t think he’d agree to come here. I knew it was a possibility that he’s turn to you for help, but coming here? I went to check a few other places first...lost some time.”

“I see. What lead you here, then?”

“There’s no way Sherlock could just disappear without you knowing about it. I couldn’t be sure he was actually here, but I knew you knew where he was. Figured my chances of getting you to tell me were better if I asked in person, rather than over the phone.”

John’s last sentence could seem innocuous enough, were it not for the tone of his voice, one that screams ‘threat’. Mycroft’s smile stretches an inch.

“Tell me, John, in your _professional_ opinion – what is going on here?”

“I might not be you or Sherlock, Mycroft, but I’m not blind. Fever, sweating, and pain, combined with the fact that Sherlock’s latest case was heavily drug-orientated – I know signs of drug withdrawal when I see them.”

“Then why did you feel the need to ask me what’s going on?”

 

 

John knows Mycroft is taunting him, knows there is a hidden motive to all of this, but he can’t be bothered to figure it out now. Something’s going on with Sherlock, and John doesn’t have time Mycroft’s games.

“Because drug withdrawal doesn’t _just happen_. Mycroft. One has to be on drugs first, in order to go through drug withdrawal.” Every word is propelled forcefully from John’s mouth, hurdling towards Mycroft, where he perches, seemingly indifferent, in his chair.

“Well then, there’s your answer.”

“No, no it isn’t. Not the full answer, at least. I need to know what happened to Sherlock.”

“Did it ever cross your mind that he simply relapsed while undercover and is now trying to get away from you in order to enjoy his habit in peace?”

“Why would he come here then, if that were the case? Here, of all places?”

“That wasn’t a ‘no’, Doctor.”

“The ‘no’ was implied.” John’s eyes flick briefly to the left. Mycroft’s expression shifts.

“No, it wasn’t. It was an attempt at rationalising away doubt – and a fairly good one, too – but it wasn’t a ‘no’. Indeed, why would Sherlock come here, _of all places_ , if he wanted to maintain his drug habit? Surely he knew I wouldn’t stand for it. So, yes, it doesn’t make for a likely scenario – but it does make for a very good indicator.”

“Of what?”

“Of the fact that the thought has, in fact, crossed your mind. Interesting.”

“Of course I considered the possibility – _briefly_. It would have been reckless of me to just discard it. I could make any conclusions, but I couldn’t rule anything out, either. I didn’t have all the _data_. Never make a conclusion without all the data – Sherlock taught me that.”

“Did he now?”

“Yes, he did. And since I don’t have all the data, I refuse to jump to conclusions. That, and I have a strong gut feeling that there’s something else going on here.”

Silence settles and for a few minutes the air in the room is as still as the surface of a lake in a calm night. John feels like a piece of antique furniture being audited by Mycroft’s unrelenting stare. He knows Mycroft is picking up clues and signals John’s probably not even aware of sending, and piecing together a picture John will never really get to see. Then Mycroft draws a breath, the sound sending ripples and creating waves in the room, lowers his hands so that they’re resting in his lap, and lowers his eyes, staring intently at their long, tidily manicured digits.

“When we were children, Sherlock wanted a dog. Not any dog, mind you. No, as with all things, Sherlock was very specific about what sort of dog. A Samoyed. He thought the species to be a clever one, for reasons that proved to be incorrect later on.”

Mycroft studies the cuticles around his fingernails with the scrutiny worthy of a scientist on the cusp of world-changing discovery. A few beats of silence pass, filling out John’s quota for the Holmesian love of theatricality and double entendre.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asks, fisting his left hand. Mycroft doesn’t look up, just flexes his fingers and stretches them back out, still appearing engrossed in the twirls of skin around his knuckles and the neat ovals of his nails.

“He read somewhere that Samoyeds got their name because they would chew off their own legs if caught in a bear-trap. The word is of Slavic origin, and translates as the phrase for “self-eating”. He thought the dogs were clever because, when caught in a trap, they would endure pain and chew off their own leg, but make it out alive. They were fighters, he said, they did whatever it took to free themselves, and that’ what made them smart – knowing that a single limb isn’t worth the price of life. The leg was collateral damage, but the dog survived.

He was rather disappointed when he found out the dogs were actually called after the Samoyedic people of Siberia, and that the whole auto-cannibalism lark was just a product of folk-tales and false etymology. However, it did save our parents from a month-long sulk he would have treated them to when they told him we couldn’t get one.

Still, childhood beliefs die hard, wouldn’t you agree, John?”

“Mycroft, I would appreciate it if you spared me the analogies. I need to know what happened to him.”

“I’m afraid, Doctor Watson, that I am not at liberty to say.”

“Ok, let me try and suss it out, then.” John’s voice is forceful and fierce – angry. “What are you saying? That Sherlock is somehow in a trap and he is causing himself harm to get out of it? That still doesn’t explain why he ran away and left me behind, _again_. Hm?  So, then, it could be that Sherlock’s trapped and I am somehow a part of that trap, so he is...what – _‘chewing me off’_? What is going on, Mycroft?”

Once again, John’s question is met by an answer which is seemingly a part of a completely different conversation.

 “The Samoyed dogs don’t chew their own legs off to save themselves. They do, however, display other qualities that characterise their entire species.”

“And which would those be?”

“Loyalty, to the point of stupidity. And...love. The dog isn’t clever enough to sacrifice the leg to save itself, John. It would all be endlessly simpler if it were.”

With this, Mycroft finally raises his eyes to John’s.

“I am still now really sure how Sherlock features as a dog in that metaphor, but I honestly don’t ca –”

“I never said Sherlock was the dog, John. I only said he liked the idea that the dog would free itself from the trap, no matter how painful. It is so hard for the trap to let go – it isn’t its nature, because the trap is destructive. But the dog should know better, know when to sacrifice a bit to save the whole, no matter how painful. It isn’t himself that Sherlock sees as the dog in this story, John. It is _you_.”

“What are you on about? If I am the dog, what does that make Sherlock then?”

Mycroft’s only answer is another pointed look, and John finally gets it. _‘If I am the dog, than that makes Sherlock...the trap.’_ The thought doesn’t make things clearer for John, but it does confirm his feeling that something’s off.

Seeing the realisation dawn in John’s eyes, Mycroft leans back in his chair.

“I can’t tell you what happened, John. Sherlock and I have a... _peculiar_ relationship, and I wouldn’t be doing it any favours by betraying the little trust Sherlock has decided to out in me. Besides, it isn’t my story to tell. It is up to him what he reveals.”

“I want to see him.” John says.

“Well, I guess whether you get to do so is also up to Sherlock.”

“It is also _up to me._ ”

Mycroft regards John in silence for a beat or two, before giving a small nod.

“Yes. Yes, I guess it is.”

John isn’t quite sure what has just transpired, but it feels as if he passed a test he didn’t even know he was taking.

“And I’m staying.”

“Very well. I will have a room arranged for you.”

They stand up and turn to the exit. Once back in the corridor they are once again met by Sherlock and the nurse, who seems about ready to put a leash on the patient to keep him from running away all the time. Sherlock’s eyes lock with John’s and he stops trying to fidget out of the nurse’s reach. John can’t place the look in his flatmates eyes. Sherlock seems torn, but adamant. He appears even slightly angry, though who’s the subject of his anger remains unclear to John.

Mycroft pulls out his Blackberry and starts typing away, addressing John at the same time.

“Well, now that you’re here, John, I might as well re-schedule my trip. I had to cancel when Sherlock turned up, but I believe I am leaving him in more-than-capable hands.”

Sherlock shoots a dagger-look at his older brother.

“Yes, please do. Hopefully whatever crisis produced by the unfathomable depths of human stupidity, that requires your agitating presence, will take you to the opposite hemisphere.” Sherlock’s sallow complexion and sweaty brow diminish the contemptuous air he is aiming for, yet John can’t help but smirk internally at the fact that even now, in the throes of a sever withdrawal, Sherlock can maintain his ‘arrogant prick’ image. He looks ready to keel over, his pale eyes glassy against the kisses of purple that surround them, the thin skin below his lower lids seemingly transparent, painted in deep shades of fatigue and exhaustion.

“Ever the bottomless well of gratitude, aren’t you, Sherlock?” Mycroft replies, with a sardonic smile, lifting his eyes to stare at the sickish figure of his younger sibling. John thinks that he will never fully comprehend the dynamics of the Holmes brothers.

“Well then, I believe I have just enough time to pack. John, you will be shown to your room. Please, don’t hesitate to ask if there’s anything you need. Sherlock, do try and act your age. My people aren’t paid nearly enough to put up with your antics.” Mycroft’s tone is so similar to that of a housewife chiding her child and trying to make a guest feel at home that John would find it hilarious, were it not for the given circumstances.

“Now, John. If you wouldn’t mind following Yates here”, an older man in a livery appears in the door way to the right, “he will show you to your room.”

The sentence is made to sound like an offer or a request, but John hears it for what it is – a dismissal. Mycroft has some business to discuss with Sherlock, and John has no place in it. Squashing down the need to stomp his feet (he isn’t Sherlock, after all, he doesn’t stomp) and stay rooted to the spot, John follows the butler.

After climbing several stairways and navigating dark corridors, he is shown into an airy, large room with a tacky four-posted bed, a work desk, a wardrobe, and an armchair.

“We will have some of your clothes delivered later this evening, sir”, the butler says.

“Um, yes...Thank you.”

Taking off his jacket, John slings it over the chair and takes a look around. The place screams “Mycroft” and John can tell he won’t be getting much sleep in here. He takes a look out the tall window and sees Mycroft’s car pull out of the driveway. Taking this as a sign that Mycroft and Sherlock have finished whatever exchange they had, John exits the room, intent on finding Sherlock and getting to the bottom of all this.

He roams the corridors for a few minutes, before finding his way back to the lobby. He climbs up the stairs he guesses lead to Sherlock’s room and ends up in another corridor, one containing five doors. Just as he tries to guess which one is Sherlock’s, the nurse he saw earlier exits the room at the end of the corridor.

“Oh, Dr. Watson. How can I help you?”

“I was just looking for Sherlock.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Holmes is asleep. He has to rest and must not be disturbed. I was told he would call me if he needed anything, but other than that I was to leave him alone until morning and not let anyone in.”

“I will not disturb him. I’m a doctor, I know what to do.”

“I’m sorry, but I was specifically instructed not to let anyone into the room.”

“Instructed by whom?”

“By Mr. Holmes.”

John is about to curse Mycroft when he realises that the instruction could have come from Sherlock.

“Sorry, _which_ Mr. Holmes.”

“Mr. Sherlock.”

Just as she says this, they hear the faint ‘ _click’_ of Sherlock’s door being locked from the inside. ‘ _So much about being asleep_ ’, John thinks. He knows the nurse isn’t at fault so he tries to rein in the fast-burning fuse of his temper.

“Alright. Thank you. Good night.” He leaves for his room again. The night is quickly setting outside, darkness falling like a cascade of ink across the landscape.

“Good night, Dr. Watson.”

Back in his room, John tries to sleep, but the bed is too soft and the duvet too heavy. Staring at the canopy above his head, he hears soft pads that start out quiet and grow louder by the second. At first he thinks it’s footfalls in the corridor. He stands to open the door, half-hoping Sherlock ignored the nurse and escaped his room again (the doctor in John cringes at this), but as his feet hit the floor he realises the sound he is hearing is rain, which starts to fall with increasing intensity.

Accepting the fact that sleep wasn’t what the universe had planned for him tonight, John grabs a letter opener off the desk and slips out of his room and makes his way to Sherlock’s door. He tried not to dwell on the fact that opening locked doors is one of more morally dubious skills Sherlock has thought him, as he works the lock of Sherlock’s room. The sound of it yielding is lost to the loud beating of the rain, and John pushes the door slightly ajar before entering.

Sherlock seems to be truly asleep now, though his slumber appears to be fitful. John settles himself in an armchair next to the window, a twin of the one in his room. He stares through the rain-streaked window, at the fountain that threatens to spill with the extra water pouring into it from the sky. He looks at the figures at the foot of the statue in the centre of the fountain. To John, they look as if they’re drowning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> Answers to all things left open and some proper Sherlock-John interaction are coming in the next two chapters, promise.
> 
> Chapter 3 should be up tomorrow and Chapter 4 on Monday (that is if 'His Last Vow doesn't render me incapable of proper functioning :P)
> 
> (Please ignore the second end-note, it's a mistake, the site keeps displaying it)


	3. Adrift, in the ocean of us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so...over 6000 words. Hope this answers all the questions, (well not ALL, there wouldn't be anything else to write about then, but most) :)
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

> “It's a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a sceptical mind”
> 
> Naguib Mahfouz

* * *

_Night, 17 th January, 2016 – 18th January, 2016_

The rain beats an erratic staccato against the window. It isn’t soothing. It doesn’t induce pensive thoughts, or melancholic reminiscence. Instead, it looks as if the glass is melting, turning runny and liquid. Turning his body in the tall armchair next to the dissolving window, John checks on Sherlock’s sleeping form, disfigured by the heavy duvet, but familiar nonetheless. He knows the medical team is here in case something out-of-the-ordinary happens, but really, there is no real point to them being here – Sherlock doesn’t do ordinary, but John knows how to deal with that, and while Mycroft’s men are always top-notch, there is no internship or specialisation programme in the world, John knows, that can prepare a man for Sherlock at his worst. John has an expertise gained through a singular experience, which makes him a consulting specialist in Sherlock – only one in the world.

Besides, from the little he managed to gather during his short stay at Mycroft’s home ( _estate would be more like it_ , John thinks, but still...) this is more than just a relapse, and somehow, for some reason that is maddeningly eluding him, John knows he is somehow at the heart of all this. If he could only pin-point what exactly ‘ _this’_ is.

“You think as loud as you stomp up the stairs in anger.” Sherlock gravelly voice startles John where he sits, causing him to flinch and tear his gaze from the window. He doesn’t ask Sherlock for how long he’s been awake. He knows Sherlock probably figured out John was in the room even before fully waking.

“Maybe I think louder when I’m angry.”

“Maybe, but you are not angry right now.”

“Am I not?”

“No. You are confused, worried, determined, but not angry. You fist your dominant hand when you are angry, and your jaw tightens, but right now your hand is resting lax, and your expression is not one of anger. Besides, you were rubbing the edge of your left sleeve between the fingers of your right hand the way you always do when thinking about baffling matters which need _fixing_.” Sherlock’s litany is not delivered at its usual speed, which only means that it is at normal-speech pace, but to John it is indicator enough of just how bad Sherlock is feeling.

“You just can’t turn it off, not even for a second, can you?” John asks, without malice, only with subtle amazement. Even like this, in the midst of a withdrawal, Sherlock’s mind doesn’t rest. John thinks how tiresome it must be sometimes.

“Not a switch or a tap.” Sherlock replies from where he is cooped up in the fluffed-up nest of covers.

“Yeah...yeah, you’ve told me that once already.”

Silence falls once again, seeping in from the places where shadow and light come to overlap in various shades of dark.

“Why aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Why aren’t you angry?” It would be easy to say Sherlock sounds small or broken, easy to attribute all of this to some deep-reaching scars or childhood trauma, but it would be a lie. Sherlock’s tone is just curiosity, pure and untainted. He sounds exhausted, physically, but not small. If he does sound broken, it is in a way that all things are broken when left in the middle of a fresh battlefield – temporarily damaged but not irreparably so. He sounds like vibrations of air above trenches, permeated by whistles of falling bomb-shells and steady anticipation of the next bout of battle, so if there is anything broken in Sherlock’s voice, John realises it doesn’t mean Sherlock is a matter that needs fixing – he is an ongoing battlefield that is yet to find its path to peace. And John is just the right person to enter it – a doctor and a soldier, a warrior healer. He isn’t here to _fix_ Sherlock, because Sherlock isn’t in need of fixing – he is here to fight by Sherlock’s side.

“Because I feel as if there’s more going on then you’re telling me, and I don’t want to lash out before finding out exactly what it is”, John responds.

Sherlock’s face, pale like a shard of sacramental bread, almost glowing neon in the dimness underneath the bed canopy, displays a mixture of annoyance and admiration unwillingly felt.

“How can you be so sure? How do you know I didn’t simply relapse and just did a very good job of making it look as if there was more to it?”

‘ _He’s not going to give up without a fight’_ John ponders. ‘ _Does he ever?’_ his own voice teases.

“Maybe I’m not sure. Maybe I’m just throwing around wild guesses. Or maybe, while I may not _be you_ , I do _know you_.” John shifts his weight, leaning to brace his forearms against his thighs, leaning towards the bed.

“Very well. If you know me as well as you seem to think, and are so sure of your powers of observation, why don’t you tell me what _you_ think is going on?”

“I don’t know, but if I were forced to guess, I’d say you are trying to do something to protect me – from what, I don’t know – but whatever it is that you are trying to do, I would just like to remind you what happened last time you decided to protect me and keep me out of the loop about it. I’m not letting you fib your way out of this Sherlock.”

They don’t bring up the Fall much, not because neither of them dares but because they’ve put it to rest, mostly. _Mostly_. John feels as if this is a good time to remind Sherlock what happens when he pushes people away, and if it is a low blow then John admits to playing dirty. Sometimes the end justifies the means, and even if he doesn’t know what the end will be yet, John knows that there is only one he will accept – the one that has him and Sherlock on the same side of whatever divide Sherlock seems so adamant about placing between them.

He prepares for a long battle, stealing himself for being forced to persuade Sherlock, bully him (if it comes to that) into telling him the truth. He can’t help Sherlock if he doesn’t have all the data. Sherlock should know this better than anyone. But apparently, either the physical processes taking place are taking their toll on Sherlock’s determination (‘ _pig-headedness would be more like it’_ John thinks) or the resurrection of the Fall makes for a compelling-enough argument, because Sherlock yields to John’s request and starts talking. He plunges into the story without preamble, words flowing swift and fluent, despite the obvious strife his body is currently experiencing.

“They caught me a few hours after our Christmas meeting. Apparently, word has spread someone was snooping around, looking for the killer drugs. It was bound to happen eventually, I was just hoping to have it all worked out by the time it did. They kept me in one of their smaller hide-outs in East End, for the first week or so, mostly blindfolded or in a very small room. I deduced where I was the first day. They moved me two days after New Year’s. They couldn’t afford to have me work out where they were keeping me this time, so they didn’t settle for a simple blindfold. I guess they knew I would still be able to find out quite a lot using senses other than sight, like I did in the previous place. So, they came up with a different solution.”

John can feel his stomach churning, that hot-tar feeling returning to it. He can predict the general direction in which Sherlock’s story is heading and he doesn’t know what disturbs him more – the story itself or the calm, matter-of-fact tone Sherlock is using to tell it, appearing completely detached, as if he is narrating a documentary, and not talking about his own abduction and captivity.

“I suppose I was a bit wrong when I said one couldn’t even count on the drug lords to be creative. Turns out that they are, if nothing else, a rather practical lot. They had to get rid of the drugs, seeing as their customers were dropping dead, and they also had to prevent me from being able to use my powers of observation. What’s that saying – two birds, one stone? Well, either way, they diluted the drug, heroin, so it was not fatal, at least not immediately, and started injecting me with it. They’ve kept me semi-conscious, to make sure I was alive, but on a constant high, so that my senses were dulled. With my history, I was extremely susceptible to the effects.”

It’s all too calm, John thinks, the way Sherlock talks about it all. There is still a piece of the story missing, a crucial piece – John can feel it. But he doesn’t rush it. He presses a hand to his lips, as if the physical barrier of a few more layers of skin, muscle, and bone will help keep the words in.

“I was in a haze. Sometimes I heard them walking towards me, but I couldn’t tell if what I was hearing were steps or just sounds imagined by my drug-addled brain. Sometimes I thought it was just my heartbeat, until I felt them grab my arm, and by then it was too late to try anything. I did try, once, to fight them off. They made a mistake, the first day they brought me to the catacombs. I guess it was one of the lower-ranking members of the ring that got the task of dosing me, and they left the syringe on the floor next to me. I managed to grab it when I thought I heard someone coming, tried to stab them, but whoever came to renew my high knew what they were doing. I didn’t get as far as lifting my hand before I was out of it again.

They’ve stopped dosing me the morning of the day Lestrade found me. I couldn’t understand why, at the time, but I guess they’ve found someone desperate enough to buy the diluted stuff, no matter how bad and toxic, so they stopped wasting it on me. Besides, by that time they already found a new place to use a HQ. They left me handcuffed to a pipe with a lock-pick set within hand’s reach and a drug kit on the other side of the cell. I was free to go, except they knew I wouldn’t. They created a chemical dependency which was far more efficient a prison than any metal and stone. They knew I knew I would reach for the kit if I unlocked myself. They didn’t care if someone found me eventually or if I knew where I was and told the authorities. They fled, and with my mental faculties rendered almost useless in the days past, I wasn’t much use at deducing where to. I have no idea why they didn’t kill me, but I would assume that they knew they’d be more likely to have Mycroft and his men hunting them down if they did. This way at least there was a chance, however slight, that we might all just give up on ever trying to find them. The withdrawal symptoms had already started by the time Lestrade brought me back to Baker Street. More specifically, the cravings.”

Sherlock’s voice doesn’t waver or break, just slides through the air like the glass-melting rain slides along the window behind John. John lowers his hand from his lips, finally opening the dam, allowing words to spill out.

“You didn’t relapse. Not really. Not at all.” It’s not a question – it was never a question, only a belief, held firmly (questioned, yes, but still held firmly) and in face of all evidence speaking against it– and John feels that hot, burning feeling in the pit of his stomach slowly fade, as if it is being cooled by cold water.

“No.” Sherlock’s eyes are steady, as is his voice. “Not by my choice, anyway.”

“You should be in a hospital, Sherlock.”

“No. Mycroft’s got a medical team, all I might need is provided for. No need for hospital.”

“What are you talking about? You’ve been given toxic drugs for days on end!”

“As I said – Mycroft made sure anything I might need is provided for.”

John just sighs a heavy sigh, coming to terms with the fact that this particular battle was lost from the beginning, and waits for Sherlock to continue, but Sherlock seems to have said all he thinks is necessary to shed adequate light on the situation, so John decides waiting won’t get him far.

“That still doesn’t explain why you left without saying anything, and then proceeded to ask your brother for help, all the time trying to keep me off your trail. And what did you mean when you said they knew you wouldn’t unlock the handcuffs, even though they left you the lock-picks?”

There is something in Sherlock’s eyes, something juxtaposed to the eerie calm of his voice and the deceitful tranquillity that lingers in the room. John can’t see properly, can’t quite pin it down, but somewhere in him, a memory is stirred, like a twin that senses its sibling via some telepathic link. He’s seen that look before – seen it on Sherlock once already – slightly different, somewhat more obvious than now, but he is sure it is the same thing.

It is the look of a bewildered animal caught in a trap, or a man grappling at the straws of his shattered reality as previously rock-solid foundations of his world are shaking like pudding, falling apart like a poorly-built Jenga tower. It is the look of a man afraid.

“Why did you leave, Sherlock?”

John question sounds completely different now than it did all that time ago when Sherlock came back from the dead. This time, it is said quietly, almost gently, but firmly. John can see Sherlock teetering on the edge of something, and he half-expects an outburst, but Sherlock wins whatever inner struggle he’s got going on and keeps his voice calm.

“No matter what they teach you about drug addiction in medical school, no matter how well you might know the symptoms of withdrawal, you don’t really know what it is like unless you’ve been though it all. It’s like your whole body is at war with itself, and your common sense and ability of rational thought come out of it as collateral damage. The state in which I was, given the physical disturbance at its core, decreased my ability of rational thought nearly to naught, and rendered me almost completely unable to control my impulses. I would have given up anything at that moment for a single hit, even though I knew I shouldn’t, even though I didn’t _want to_ want it.”

It is only as he says the last few sentences that Sherlock’s breath starts coming out in agitated puffs, faster and more shallow than before. John sees the thin threads of control slipping, wasting away as Sherlock struggles to keep himself from saying whatever it is he isn’t saying, whatever it is that this whole thing is really about. He is trying so hard that John feels almost cruel for ploughing on with questions, but he knows he must, so he doesn’t let too many seconds pass before asking his next one, and feeling as if he is singlehandedly severing the last gossamers of calm that Sherlock’s holding onto.

“What? What were you going to give up that was so important you had to leave and not tell me? I could have helped, you know I could have. I’m a doctor, I’m equipped to treat you. Whatever you tried to do, whatever you tried to ‘give up’ in order to get high – I would have stopped you.” John’s voice grows steadily louder with each new word, days – weeks – of worry and frustration finally taking their toll. “So, tell me, because I don’t understand – what was it that you were willing to give up that made you run without even thinking about turning to me for help?”

 “You, John! I was going to give up _you_.” Sherlock’s calm demeanour finally shatters, like a faulty soap bubble bursting mid-air, and the words come out raw and intense. “Don’t you see? In that moment, I would have done _anything_ , if it meant getting high. I knew you’d try to stop me, try to get me clean. I wanted that, but I wanted the high more. You would have gotten in the way, and that was unacceptable, so I would have had to give you up. I was ready to give you up for a single syringe filled with heroin, perfectly so, and _that’s_ what is _truly_ unacceptable. That is why I left. That is why I didn’t unlock my cuffs in the first place. I told you John, not all prisons are metal and stone. I wasn’t being kept prisoner by those handcuffs – I was being protected from myself. I knew someone would find me, eventually, but I hoped it to be Mycroft’s men.”

John’s momentarily rendered speechless, partly due to shock and partly to a feeling closely resembling outrage.

“What makes you think I would have left, just like that? You can’t just decide to _‘give me up’_ , Sherlock. I’m not a habit, or a thing. I wouldn’t have let you.”

“You wouldn’t have had a choice. I would have driven you away – you know I am capable of that. I would have said all the wrong things, and they would have been the exactly right things to say in order to push you away. I would have hit where it hurt, refused your help, belittled you, bullied you until there was nothing _‘brilliant’_ or _‘amazing’_ about it, until you finally decided that it wasn’t worth it – that _I_ wasn’t worth it. Don’t you see, John? You say you know me, but I know you just as well. I know how to hurt people when I want to, I am even more selfish than most people; I know which buttons to press and which wounds to push my fingers into. In the end, I would have succeeded, not only because I rarely fail, but also because you, John, would have done the right thing and walked away while you still had legs and sanity to carry you. It would have been easy.”

“Or I would have managed to get you clean. You are such a pompous git, you know that? What makes you think I wouldn’t have seen right through you? I know the symptoms of withdrawal, Sherlock, and while I might have missed them that night when we got you out, I would have noticed them eventually. Don’t you think I would have been able to cope with you?”

“Perhaps, you would have been, for a while. That’s the problem – you would have tried, you always do, John. And you would have kept at it for a long time, probably. With your history of attraction to danger, you would have accepted the challenge of setting me straight, and I would have destroyed you in the process.”

“Well, thanks for the trust, Sherlock. I’ve said this a million times, and I’ll say it again – for a genius you are incredibly thick sometimes. You said you were selfish – more so than other people – but all this time you’ve been doing _this_...this twisted, up-side-down version of trying to protect me. That isn’t selfish, Sherlock. It is stupid, but not selfish.”

“Oh, John, I feel as if I’m reading your blog. You’re romanticising things again. Of course it is selfish. All human actions are, at their core, selfish.”

“That’s really cynical, Sherlock. Besides, you didn’t do what was easiest. You could have just unlocked the cuffs and taken the drugs. That would have been easier. Or you could have simply gone off to the first dealer once you left the flat. Instead, you came to your brother – whom you can barely stand at best of times – and asked for help.”

“It isn’t cynical, it’s just true. You can’t call the truth cynicism just because you don’t like it, John.  Each action is motivated by one goal – indulging some urge we have. Think about it – whatever you do, you always have a gain from it. No one really does things which only cause them harm or discomfort. Even when people do seemingly selfless things just to make others happy, they profit from doing them by feeling good about themselves or being happy about making someone else happy. It isn’t cynicism – it’s human nature.

What I did was selfish because it made things easier on me. In the end, whatever I chose to do would have been selfish, one way or another, the only thing varying being the level of selfishness. If I had stayed in 221B and had you believe that I relapsed, you would have done your best to get me clean, but in the meanwhile I would have either found drugs or plummeted into severe withdrawal, like this one, and taken it out on you. It wouldn’t have been hard, and it would have been effective in trying to shoo you off. I would have had the best of both worlds – drugs and you – for a while, and you would have suffered for it. That’s selfish, but not nearly as selfish as this.

As for coming to Mycroft’s instead of going off to find a dealer – I said I was selfish, not completely lacking discipline. I managed to get myself here, because I knew Mycroft was my only chance of getting clean, cruel tyrant that he is. He likes seeing me writhe too much, so I knew he’d make sure I went through with the detox, in a way that no one else can. This was by far the easiest and most selfish option, John, because I knew you’d come looking, I knew you’d find me. And I knew that this was the one option which left open the possibility of keeping you. You say you would have managed to get me clean, but truth is John, if I had stayed in Baker Street, I would have found a way to get high, the temptation would have be too great. You believe you could have kept me from doing so, but your loyalty to me and your need to prove it by placing faith in me make you too susceptible to my shams. I needed someone ruthless, someone who would have ignored my begging, someone who saw right through my deceptions, someone who wouldn’t have relented no matter what and made me go through this withdrawal no matter how much vitriol I spewed at them. When one has to ask for a favour one isn’t even sure he wants, a favour which includes days of foul moods, fighting the most primal urges of the body, a man doesn’t ask a friend for it. He asks an enemy. Luckily for me, my archenemy can’t resist an opportunity to place me in his debt.”

There is no pathos in Sherlock’s voice. The initial outburst has calmed down and now words seep out of Sherlock’s mouth and into the space between two men the same way Sherlock’s deductions fall around a dead body – calm and collected, and completely convinced of their truthfulness. Some of the phrases might sound close to romantic, were it not for the clinical precision with which Sherlock delivers them. It isn’t a love declaration – they don’t do that, never aloud, never so blatantly – it is just Sherlock proving a point, proving himself right.

“You might say this was me being selfless, trying to spare you, but don’t you see how selfish my actions were? All other options allowed you to make a clean break. It wouldn’t have been easy, but you would have managed.  This is the only one which had you running across London, looking for me, and even now, you are not free to leave – your _conscience_ wouldn’t allow you to _._ Not all prisons are metal and stone John. Some are choices. I knew that if I chose drugs in that cell I would have locked myself away in a world without you. Again. This way, by choosing this, I locked you away in a world _with_ me. I will get clean and you will stay, but there is no guarantee I won’t relapse in the future. It is selfish, John. I don’t deny it, and I don’t regret it. I did none of this to protect you or spare your feelings. I did this to protect myself.”

It isn’t an attempt at emotional manipulation (although John knows Sherlock to be more than capable of such things) – Sherlock sounds as if he is arguing a case in front of a court, and he has just won by presenting the most fool-proof of arguments. ‘ _We’re two idiots’_ John realises, ‘ _One thinking with his heart and the other trying to feel with his brain_ ’.

“You really believe that, don’t you?” John’s voice once again loses all fire there is in it, in the face of Sherlock’s honest belief in his own selfishness. Sherlock’s face crumples with confusion.

“Of course I really believe it. There’s no evidence to the contrary.”

John studies Sherlock, trying to piece together everything he’s been told. He wonders if Sherlock can hear himself, hear how far he’s come from the man he was before the Fall. This is the same man who once uttered the words ‘ _alone is what I have, alone protects me’_ , but who is now protecting himself by ensuring he _doesn’t_ end up alone. John thinks about Sherlock’s theory about selfishness, and realises Sherlock is right – his actions are selfish, but John can hardly hold it against him. He’s annoyed by Sherlock’s belief that he holds so much power over John that John cannot decide his actions regarding Sherlock for himself, but he cannot feel angry about the fact that Sherlock’s selfishness is directed towards keeping John in his life. John’s actions are selfish as well, because he refuses to endure life without Sherlock again. They might be on the self-destructive side of the spectrum at time, but that doesn’t mean they’re no selfish. A piece of a puzzle clicks into place and he closes his eyes with a quiet ‘ _ah’_. Sherlock catches this, eyes narrowing as if that will allow him to see John’s thoughts.

“What?” he asks.

“Samoyeds.” John answers, shaking his head, a small smile on his lips. Sherlock looks at John as if he worries he has just talked all sanity out of the army doctor. John looks straight at him, that inexplicable smile firmly in place.

“You and Mycroft are the most dysfunctional gits I’ve ever met, and I count myself in that category.”

Sherlock’s about to quip up with a question, but it’s John’s turn to speak now.

“Mycroft told me a whole story about how you wanted a Samoyed as a kid, because you thought they were clever for chewing their leg off if it got caught in a bear-trap. He said you were very disappointed when you found out it was just a myth. At first I thought he was talking about you, that _you_ were the dog in the story, but it turned out I was the dog and you were the trap. Mycroft said one couldn’t expect the trap to let go of the dog – that it wasn’t _its nature_ to do so – so it was on the dog to sacrifice the leg.”

“Mycroft did always like to be theatrical in his explanations.”

“Pot calling the kettle black, Sherlock.” John says. “He was wrong, you know. Mycroft, I mean. In the metaphor, you are not the trap. That is, you not _just_ the trap.”

“What else am I, then?”

“You’re clever, you’ll work it out.”

They stare at each other for a few moments, before Sherlock speaks and breaks the silence.

“I still stand by what I said then – they’re stupid for not chewing their leg off, Samoyeds. Stupidly loyal to the leg. It is just a leg, after all. They have three others, they could function perfectly fine without one.”

“But it’s not just a leg, is it?” John asks, “It is a part of the dog. And no matter how many other legs it’s got, it would always, _always_ miss the one he lost. It would never be the same again, never whole. Crippled, that’s what it would be.”

“Still, it’s stupid not sacrifice a life for a single limb.”

“Perhaps the life without the limb isn’t what the dog wants. Perhaps it’s no life at all like that, for it.”

And these are their love declarations – talks of chewed-off legs and dogs of Siberian planes, horrible metaphors draped between them like thin veils of safety, allowing them to say what they can’t say plainly.

“I don’t believe you, you know. That you did all this for purely selfish reasons. You can say whatever you wish, if it helps you maintain some illusion, but I don’t believe it. Four years ago you wouldn’t have given any of this a second thought. You would have taken the drugs, immediately. So, say what you want, Sherlock, but I’m not buying it. You’re wrong, because I wouldn’t have left, no matter what. You say I romanticise you, give you more credit than you are due, but you do the same with me. I’m not nearly as good at self-preservation as you claim – I’m a man who chases murderers with a madman in a coat _for kicks,_ and if that doesn’t say ‘ _self-destructive’_ just a little bit, then I don’t know what does. I would have stayed, and you know it.

You could have stayed, relapsed, done whatever, and I would have stayed and it would have been hard. But you decided to spare me that, decided to protect me from that and possibly return when you posed no threat. I’m not denying that your actions were selfish, but I don’t think they weren’t just a bit selfless, too.”

“You’re speaking in paradoxes now, John, and your determination to embellish my personality is astounding. Ever wearing the pink spectacles.”

Sherlock’s tone is almost soft, almost an admission, and John can swear he sees traces of an impressed smirk in Sherlock’s eyes.

“And you’re not denying anything I said.” John says.

“Would you believe my word if I tried.”

“Nope.”

“Well then...that settles it. You always were rather obstinate in these _matters of the heart_.”

“Git.”

“Idealist.”

“I’m a war veteran, Sherlock, I am hardly an idealist. Realist would be more like it.”

The room seems to b swaying, like a boat that just weathered the worst of a storm. Words dry up for a few moments, and neither of the men seems able to meet the other’s eye. In the end, Sherlock clears his throat and looks at John.

“You worked it out – my message.”

“Yes, I did. Red for degrees, green for minutes and blue for seconds. One question, though, if you didn’t want me to find you, why did you leave the dominoes?”

“I didn’t know at the time what they would do. When they caught me I knew they’d want to send a message to someone who’d be eager to find me. I was prepared for the possibility of being taken, so I made the pouch on my scarf days before, really. When they tried to tackle me, I managed to struggle just long enough to rip the scarf just above the pouch and throw the whole thing into the barrel to keep them from suspecting anything. It looked as if I were simply trying to prepare for a fight. The fire was dying, and I knew that was my best chance to leave you a message. Later, they used the singed piece of scarf – predictable, really – to send you a message. I am glad they did, I believe it made finding _my_ message all that easier.”

“Finding it – yes. Solving it – no.”

“I knew you’d get it eventually.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You guessed.”

“It was an educated guess. As you said, you know me. And I know you. I knew you’d get it.”

By now, Sherlock’s lanky frame is being seized by violent shivering. Despite the air being charged with everything they’ve just said (and all the things they didn’t), John stands up and moves towards the bed. He lays a hand on Sherlock’s forehead and then his cheeks.

“You’re still running a fever. Have they given you anything?”

“No, they said the fever wasn’t that high.”

“How high was it when you last checked?”

“37.8˚”

“Well, it’s definitely higher now. If it gets any worse, we’ll have to try and get it down. For now just try and keep warm.”

John moves to tug the duvet tighter, jostling Sherlock as he does.

“John, I would appreciate it if you’d stop doing that.”

“Why?”

At first, John thinks Sherlock is just being impossible again, but then he catches sight of the green tint stealing into the pale face below.

“Because I’m pretty sure I am about to be ill and I’d rather if you didn’t expedite it.”

“Yeah, ok. Can you make it to the loo?”

Sherlock just nods his head a bit, jaw set tight. John props him up, weaving one arm around Sherlock’s ribcage to keep him from stumbling. They barely make it inside the en-suit bathroom before Sherlock’s on all fours, with a shock of black curls splayed is stark contrast against the white porcelain of the toilet bowl.

The room fills with sounds of a body trying to expel whatever meagre contents it still holds. John moves to soak one of the hand-towels in cold water and offers it to Sherlock, as the latter lifts his head and settles on the floor, leaning against a posh bathtub. John lowers himself next to the Consulting Detective. He braces himself for the cold tiles, but is met only with gentle warmth. ‘ _Of_ course’ John thinks, ‘ _of course Mycroft’s bathroom floor would be heated_ ’. For once, John doesn’t feel the urge to roll his eyes at the extravagance that comes so naturally to the elder Holmes.

“Feeling better?” John asks.

“No.”

“Didn’t think so. You’ll feel horrible for a few days.”

“I know.”

“Should be easier when your fever breaks.”

“Yes.”

Silence floods in once again. It seems all their conversations are like intricate tapestries woven out of three types of strands – meaningful words, meaningless words and meaningful silences. Apparently deciding they covered the ‘meaningful words’ and ‘silences’ categories, Sherlock speaks up again.

“We kissed.”

“We did.”

“Who would have known simply adjusting one’s sleeves could lead to _that_.”

They look at each other, one sweaty, shivering detective and a tired-faced doctor, sitting on the floor of a too-fancy bathroom, talking about kisses and sleeves while clutching a soiled towel and trying to fight off nausea (on Sherlock’s end). There is only one thing to be done; only one thing that feels absolutely right in a moment like that.

They burst into laughter. It’s like an earthquake, a tsunami wave rocking their bodies as the laugh out all the words they can’t say yet. They laugh until Sherlock turns pale green again and John remembers that he should be resting. Slowly they calm down, with teary eyes (which in Sherlock’s case happen to be at least partly due to the detox, along with a runny nose) and flushed cheeks. For a while the bathroom is filled only with sounds of breathing, like gentle waves rolling sand in and out of the ocean. They are swimming in uncharted waters, treading the point after which they’ll probably lose sight of the shore and be left to the mercy of the open sea. All they need to do is let the currents carry them away. John thinks they just might. But not right now. Not tonight.

“You should get back into bed” he says. “You have a rough few days ahead of you. Do you think you’ll be ill again?”

“I doubt it. I haven’t eaten in days.”

“Right then. Let’s get you up.”

They make it back to the bedroom, and John helps Sherlock sit on the edge of the bed. Reluctance to relinquish hold of each other buzzes like an old light bulb. Finally, Sherlock speaks up.

 “Since it would be best if I were not without supervision, you should either stay here or call the nurse. Frightful woman really.”

“Is she now? Well, I suppose it would be better if stayed then. God knows we’ll need her and I can’t have you pissing her off the first night.” John moves back towards the chair, but is stopped by Sherlock’s voice.

“That chair will make your neck ache. The bed is large enough for four people, so feel free to take up the other side.”

“So you’re worried about my neck? Tell me – how is that selfish? Let’s see if you can prove your own theory.” John teases.

“Because you will be cranky all day tomorrow if you wake up with a crick in your neck, and I am already filling out the quota for moodiness. I wouldn’t enjoy it if you were in a foul mood as well.”

“You’re just making that up.”

“Shut up, John.”

“Really, you could have come up with a better argument, like wanting to steal body heat or something. There are many selfish reasons to invite someone into your bed.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I have enough duvets to suffocate an elephant. I hardly need shared body heat.” It is true – the room is very warm and the bed is covered in fluffy covers. John just smiles. They both know neither will say the real reason aloud. That’s not what they do.

“Fine, then. Wouldn’t want a stiff neck.”

By the time John slips off his slippers and climbs the bed, settling himself on the covers, Sherlock is already a lump of covers on the other side, with his face turned to the centre of the bed. Two pale blue eyes shine with that feverish glow in the gloom, staring at John. There are steps to be taken, bridges yet to be crossed, but right now it is very, very late (or maybe already very, very early) and language seems like too high a cognitive function, so John just blinks owlishly at Sherlock.

“Good night, Sherlock.”

“Good night, John.”

They fall asleep on the too-plush bed, John on top of the covers, and Sherlock underneath. In those neither-here-not-there moments between wakefulness and blissful oblivion of sleep, John thinks he can feel Sherlock’s trembling resonating through the feather-stuffed duvet, literally ruffling feathers, stirring up the flaky filling so that the tremors of his exhausted body reach John with each breath. Unable to let go of his conscious state, John trains his tired eyes on the lump of dark that is Sherlock’s body under the heavy covers, concentrating on the rise and fall of the outline, growing steadier and steadier with each inhale-exhale cycle, until his brain decides it’s been sleep-deprived long enough and snatches the last bits of wakefulness from John. The last thing John sees, before sleep claims him like a possessive lover, is the faint rise of Sherlock’s ribcage and shoulder.

It looks like the oncoming tide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I haven't written this much dialogue in ages.
> 
> Last chapter of Part 2 should be up tomorrow, unless something unexpected comes up, in which case Tuesday is the day :)


	4. Drink up the sundown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so here's the last chapter of part 2 :) 
> 
> The opening quote is from Vienna Teng's lovely song "Never Look Away".
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

> “I want to witness the beauty of your repair  
>  the shape you've grown  
>  for you are made of nebulas and novas and night sky  
>  you're made of memories you bury or live by  
>  so if you're out there in the cold  
>  I'll cover you in moonlight  
>  if you're a stranger to your soul  
>  I'll bring you to your birthright” – Vienna Teng, _Never Look Away_

 

* * *

_18 th January, 2016_

The early winter morning pours dish-water-grey light into the room. Two sleeping forms do not as much as stir as soft fingers of muted newborn Sun gently touch their faces, caressing them like beings of immense value. The light washes the walls and the floor, washes them clean of darkness that sticks to them like age-old grime. Sherlock stirs but doesn’t wake – not yet, not yet – and the room falls still once again. Next to him, John’s breathing is the calm rhythm one can only hear in two places – next to a sleeping loved one and on a beach, early in the day, before the buzzing life reaches it. Birth of day marks a moment in which they lay next to each other, these two creatures of some sort of legend and myth that they’ve written for themselves, these two boys playing detective and soldier and doctor and pirate, a moment in which they are the oldest they’ve ever been, but also as young as either has been for a very, very long time.

They don’t breathe in sync and their hands don’t wonder off to find each other by some faith’s decree. They don’t dream of each other, nor do their bodies shift closer and closer by simple intuition. They aren’t miracles or destiny’s puppets, so there isn’t a cosmic shift which brings them into balance as the world begins anew, as it does each morning. They are human, just human (so exquisitely, wonderfully, wondrously human), so they just sleep. It seems too little – just sleeping. It seems like a missed opportunity, like a let-down – destiny’s oversight. Only it isn’t. They are human, oh-so-human, and as such, they are vulnerable – soft and pink and breakable – and they are strong – endlessly, surprisingly, unexpectedly so. They are vulnerable strong humans, and they sleep. They sleep next to each other. Think about it – _they sleep_. They sleep next to each other, laying themselves down, _next to each other_ , with their shields and armours discarded, body-to-body, all that soft-pink-breakable exposed, all that endlessly-surprisingly-unexpectedly-strong willingly put aside. They sleep. They sleep, but that’s not all. They are human and they sleep (next to each other), but also they _trust_ (each other) _._

Such high trust, such intimate thing, sleep is. When the soul wonders off to have adventures and the body lays defenceless, it is the greatest of risks to allow another being near. And yet, they sleep, together (as if there was ever any other way).

 However, as the light washes away the darkness, it also bleaches the room of any illusion it stored away under cover of night. Sherlock and John may be sleeping peacefully now, but morning leads to disillusionment, as light reveals traces of red on the bed sheets – clues of unrests and terrors swept under the rug of exhaustion and ungodly hours.

If walls could speak, they would tell of the instant sometime between one and three in the morning when John woke up to Sherlock’s pale, lunar eyes staring intently at him, his lips an invisible line peppered with sweat, and his hands a mess of clutching fingers wrapped around his forearms.

The walls would speak of the way Sherlock’s chipped nails dug into the pale, abused flesh of his arms, scraping at the gossamer tissue till they drew blood as if it was the fountain of strength, and left bloody stains in the sea of linen that engulfed the two men. They would convey how John slowly moved, his eyes never leaving Sherlock’s, until his own palms were like second skin over Sherlock’s, tenderly uncurling Sherlock’s cramped digits, peeling them away so that the crimson crescents shone against white skin like a flag symbolising healing.

The walls can’t speak, but if they could, they would narrate the story of how John took Sherlock’s hands into his own, letting the other man grip at his fingers like a vice. Perhaps they would also tell about how John didn’t let go of Sherlock’s hands long after violent shivers that shook the Consulting Detective ceased. (Or maybe it was Sherlock who didn’t let go of John. Maybe it was both.)

So many words trapped with the destiny of remaining forever unvoiced, as they are given to voiceless panels of wood and plaster, words about how John left the bed, only to come back with an antiseptic wipe and clean bandages. These bandages now feature as Sherlock’s newest accessory, white and clean, like gloves of a Victorian debutant, snug against Sherlock’s arms – John’s signature marks, like shirtsleeves that heal cuts left by handcuffs.

The walls heard a lot – moans of pain and near-whimpers of a body craving poison. They heard soft words of comfort and disgruntled answers, sharp and hurtful in their chemically-induced impulsiveness, but ones that always quieted down to sincere apologies conveyed through looks and grips of hand.

Alas, the walls are mute, so they keep quiet, but the sunlight reads this account off their polished surfaces. Still, despite the night-time battles, Sherlock and John sleep, finally too tired to feel anything – no cravings, no need, no fear – just freedom. They sleep till long into the afternoon, awash on some faraway shores of suspended consciousness.

They sleep next to each other, and it’s a beginning of a repair.

 

* * *

_29 th January_, _2016_

Eleven days pass in an eclectic mix of good and bad, tolerable and intolerable. For the first few, Sherlock’s body seems to be running a rampant campaign against its owner, with aching limbs, teary eyes, and stomach pains. After his fewer breaks, things become easier on that front, but they are still in the midst of a blitzkrieg, with the worst of it just peeking over the horizon as cravings claim centre stage. Mood swings sway like high seas, breaking over them, but never truly managing to drag them under.

“Stop it, it will scab.” John says the fifth day, shooing Sherlock’s restless fingers from his skin, where they carve runes of despair into his skin, over and over again.

“Oh, who cares if it scabs!” Sherlock yells. “Honestly John, you can be the most tedious of people, sometimes.”

“Yes, well, you can be the biggest child I’ve ever met, _sometimes_. Sherlock.” John replies, his voice stern but calm. He knows the mood swings are not Sherlock’s fault, knows they aren’t a personal attack. They are just an unfortunate consequence, which paired up with Sherlock’s exquisite talent to verbally wound, happen to be rather unpleasant.

“And _I_ care if you give yourself an infection. Last thing you need right now is an infection.”

Days come and go, growing imperceptibly longer. Nights come and go, but John never goes back to his room. They sleep in Sherlock’s too-plush bed in his too-warm room. That’s all they do – they sleep. As days go by Sherlock finally calms down, finds a fragile equilibrium again. As nights go by, they sleep more and more, each night’s sleep interrupted by one less emergency, one less episode of John’s hands gripping Sherlock’s or John’s voice talking him through the frightful maze of his own mind.

On the seventh night, John is woken up by a soft touch to the shoulder. He flinches, ready to catch Sherlock’s bewildered gaze, but is met only by the calm blue-green as Sherlock looks at him, not in panic, but with something resembling intent and determination. Sherlock’s hand slips from John’s shoulder, slowly, never breaking contact, until Sherlock’s hand finds John’s. He doesn’t weave their fingers together, nor does he grip John’s hand. This time, he simply covers the back of John’s hand with his palm, warm and dry (no longer sweaty). John knows it a message, but in the hazy state of a person just awoken, he _feels_ it rather than comprehending it on a cognitive level. It is Sherlock trying to say... _something_ , without actually uttering the words. Words seem too violent in this quiet cosmos of their, at this hour. But John’s understands...sort of. He blinks at Sherlock, a sleepy smile on his lips, and then turns his hand so that their palms rest pressed together. Just as he is about to drift off again, he feels the message beings spelled against his palm (‘ _Spelling it out for me, Sherlock?’_ John thinks with a smirk).

Words might be violent when said aloud in their sea of linen and sleep-warm imprints of bodies, but Sherlock chooses the exact right words and doesn’t speak them. He spells them against John’s palm, short and simple, spells them three times, just in case John didn’t catch them. Out of all phrases he might have chosen, Sherlock picks just the right one. Two words with a world of meaning enclosed between their syllables.

Sherlock finishes his third scribbling and feels John’s hand move. John closes his hand around Sherlock’s, securing it within his own, together with the words Sherlock wrote.

Sherlock Holmes spells ‘thank you’ against John Watson’s palm and John Watson takes it, saves gratitude between his palm and Sherlock’s.

The eight day brings around an unusually warm day, so Sherlock and John decide to take their chances and catch some fresh air. They stroll around the park surrounding Mycroft’s mansion. They chuck rocks into Mycroft’s fountain.

By the eleventh day, Sherlock is strong enough to move around and leave the house, and he is also starting to show signs of boredom, so John devises a plan.

 “Come on, up you get.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“John...”

“Sherlock.”

Sherlock glowers at him, but John doesn’t relent.

“You know, it’s hard to be intimidated by a man wearing bright-red thermos socks.”

“We are going. Which means you have to get up.”

“Where are we going, anyway?” Sherlock grumbles.

“I think you could use some _fresh air_.” John replies, and Sherlock can’t decide whether he should be intrigued or worried by John’s mischievous smile.

 

* * *

 “As much as I would love to join you in your exceptionally juvenile behaviour, I believe the management of this place would frown upon it.”

John looks down from where he is perched on a bough, smirking. They are back at the Botanical Gardens, where John decided adult behaviour was too much of a bother and gave in to his boyish need to climb a bare magnolia tree.

“And how did you deduce that?”

“Hardly a great leap of logic – there is a ‘please don’t step of the trail’ sign right over there”, Sherlock replies, eyes still trained on John, but with his left arm stretched out to point at an archaically-looking sign that stands occluded for the most part by plush, newborn leaves of a low-growing shrub, some three metres away from where the tips of Sherlock’s shoes toe the line between the pebble-covered path and the grass.

“Well, it’s their fault the thing is practically hidden in a bush. I can barely make it out. One can hardly be expected to obey a role they cannot even read. Tell me, Sherlock, can you _really_ read it properly?”

There is a fraction of a second in which Sherlock is lightly bemused by John’s apparent obliviousness – yes, of course he can read it properly, _it’s right there_ – but as he inspects John’s face more closely, along with the tone of his voice ( _mischievous, teasing – interesting,_ )the true meaning of John’s words becomes clear.

_Read between the lines. Clever John._

After all, they are masters of subtext and of assigning words with meanings that don’t really match the ones found in dictionaries. Their entire history is like a palimpsest, lines upon lines of words almost spoken, but washed away before they fully take shape, so that they are only pale outlines below the bold ink of seemingly innocuous sentences that they speak instead. They never _seem_ to ask, which doesn’t mean that they never actually do ask.  There are words never spoken straight-out, which is not to say they haven’t said them in some way or another, repeatedly.

Sherlock bows his head slightly, a small smile adorning his lips, as he steps off the trail and onto the grass. He crosses the distance to the tree in three steps, bracing his foot in the crevice between two roots.

“Now that I think about it, it _is_ rather difficult to see properly.”

They never leave things quite unsaid, never really unspoken. Rather, they never use the precise words they ought, speaking in code and cryptic messages instead.

 _‘Tell me, Sherlock, can you really read it properly?’_ – Turn a blind eye to the rules, this is more important. We are more important.

 _‘Now that I think about it, it is rather difficult to see properly’_ **–** Of course. Yes, we are.

John is already half-way up the crooked tree, perching on the higher branches, which form a gallery of sorts, a lookout over the meadow. Sherlock climbs up, like a long-limbed hybrid of a bat and a jungle cat, and sets himself in the V between two boughs, his head levelled with John’s knees. He looks up at John, whose gaze has since shifted from the gaps in the tree top and onto Sherlock’s face. Water-blue eyes bore down on the detective, softly, the way water drills though stone – patiently but persistently. It isn’t an act of violence, but a natural occurrence – a necessary erosion.

For a few moments, they are unmoving, as if they’ve grown into the branches, rooted themselves to the living tree below their limbs. Then, as if on cue, they both move, John sliding lower and Sherlock stretching up. It’s seemingly all one fluid motion, and they are almost there, almost joint into a single current when a shout breaks the flow, like a log being cast across a narrow stream.

“Oi! Get down from there!”

A guard on patrol points the beam of his battery light at them, as if it is a death-ray or a sword, trying to defeat them with a finger of light.

John nudges Sherlock’s shoulder with his knee, urging him to climb down. They scramble over the rough bark, with muffled curses and shushed giggles, and in that moment they are young, so young, like boys, little soldiers of mischief on a battlefield of possibility, so much younger than they were a few weeks ago. It’s a rush reminiscent of that elicited years ago, when they were also younger, by an impossible shot and aftermath of a genius’s battle of wits. They were little soldiers of mischief back then, too, at the edges of a vast terrain neither could quite predict but both had no doubts about exploring. It feels like that now. It feels like a new beginning.

“Sherlock, get a move on! Hurry!”

“I’m moving!”

“Get on with it!”

“Come on John! Jump!”

When they finally stumble down onto the lawn, they make a run for the nearest point of shelter, heading over to the greenhouses. Seventeen steps separate them from the glass door when the sprinklers come on, and then they are running through water. It is a dispersed deluge composed out of countless droplets, suddenly airborne – an aerosol flood.

By the time they make it to the greenhouse in the middle of a row of three, they are soaked, liquid as much as they are solid, and the humid evaporation of water that they emit weaves and incorporates them into the dense, wet air that is still warm from the trapped heat, which lingers even though the Sun has descended an hour ago. They are back on the enchanted island, a small, isolated reprieve that smells of dark, rich earth. Sherlock looks around, his eyes cataloguing the flora that surrounds them.

“The direction in which climber plants will curl and grow depends on whether they originate from the Northern or the Southern hemisphere” he says, shifting his eyes back to John as he takes a step closer to the doctor.

“Do they now?” John asks, as if climber plants are the most fascinating things on the face of the Earth. His feet shift, bringing him closer to Sherlock.

“Yes. If you planted one from the Northern hemisphere and one from the Southern on the Equator, they’d grow toward each other.” Step, step, step – closer, closer, and closer yet.

“But if they curl, wouldn’t they also grow away from each other at one point?”

Step, step, stop.

“Yes, but they would always turn back again. I’ve never conducted an experiment to prove it, but I’d very much like to, given the chance.”

They are silent for a minute and twenty-nine seconds.

“We’re not on the Equator.” John finally says into the half-foot wide space between them.

“No, I suppose we’re not.” Sherlock replies with eyes and voice unwavering, trained still on John’s face.

“Not really ideal conditions.”

“No. But then, they almost never are.”

No further steps are taken, because there’s only enough space left for one more, one which cannot be taken, not yet, not before some more lessons in botany and scientific method.

“Can you deal with that?”

“Yes.” And then after a beat, “Can you?”

“Yes.” And with that, the last step is taken. Whether it’s John or Sherlock who moves first is unclear, but, in the end, irrelevant. It is John, or it is Sherlock, but most probably it’s both of them, meeting half-way. Either way, they meet in the middle, which is the only thing that matters, and then their lips are sliding against each other. Sherlock’s hands clutch at John’s waist, as John’s go to Sherlock’s face and neck, and the first sigh ( _John’s, Sherlock is sure. Sherlock’s, John is sure._ ) might as well be a shout, loud in its rawness, heavy with relief that soon morphs into tension. The first moan ( _theirs, joint)_ might as well be the sound of a tidal wave crashing upon the rocks, as it sways them on their feet.

They might be on the wrong latitude, but that doesn't matter. The conditions are never ideal, but that doesn't matter. Sherlock and John are like two climber plants originating from opposite hemispheres, planted at the equator, curling towards each other, as they clutch onto one another and surrender to the underflow. It's the dam breaking, and all the pent-up need ( _want, lust, love_ ) rushing out, from mouth to mouth.

Sounds of water surround them – dripping of pent-up condensation, gurgling of the irrigation system, wet sounds of bodies shifting in soaked clothes – and it feels as if they are submerged, weightlessly suspended in a medium denser than air. Catching their breaths is a labour in this little glass shelter of theirs, and heavy breathing of struggling lungs permeates the space – they might be drowning, but they can’t seem to find it in them to mind, to care.

And if their first kiss was falling apart, then this one is infinite entanglement. If the first was a crackling and burning fire, then this one is a wild current of a body of water. People think fire is a synonym for passion, but the truth is that fire is always shorter-lasting than waters mighty push. And water, water is the most passionate of elements, deep and rich and heavy, fickle and unpredictable, but ever swirling, encompassing the world. So, their second kiss is all water, with the slide of sprinkle-water covered hands against napes and cheeks, meshing of wet garments and slide of lips, no longer cracked, no longer dry, but slick and wet, slippery slopes for panted exultations and murmured semi-nonsense. They are drowning victims trading breath, pushing life back into each other with each moan and sigh, resuscitating one another with each nip of teeth and pull of bodies closer, closer, and closer yet.

 

* * *

One day the world will end. The end will start with fire. Next, there will be floods.

 

* * *

This time it is water that marks the end of Sherlock’s world – his world without John.

Maybe some things are supposed to be lost. Fear, misconceptions and deceptions, loneliness, hurt and obstinacy. Maybe, sometimes, it’s not really a loss when they are carried away. These are the things that get carried away by the water. These are the things they lose to the flood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading :)
> 
> This is what you get when I try to end stuff with fluff - metaphors featuring botany...sort of.
> 
> Oh, well...anyway, virtual cookies to anyone who caught the significance of two numbers in this chapter ;) Also, I am not sure when I'll be able to start posting part 3 (yup, part 3 - the story's not over yet), but I will try to make the wait as short as possible (real life allowing, ofc).
> 
> Anyway, thanks for sticking with this story :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :) I hope to get the next chapter up in the next few days, no later than Sunday :)


End file.
